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This incisive book provides a critical history and analysis of community organizing, the tradition of bringing groups together to build power and forge grassroots leadership for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice. Begun by Saul Alinsky in the 1930s, there are today nearly 200 institution-based groups active in 40 U.S. states, and the movement is spreading internationally. David Walls charts how community organizing has transcended the neighborhood to seek power and influence at the metropolitan, state, and national levels, together with such allies as unions and human rights advocates. Some organizing networks have embraced these goals while others have been more cautious, and the growing profile of community organizing has even charged political debate. Importantly, Walls engages social movements literature to bring insights to our understanding of community organizing networks, their methods, allies and opponents, and to show how community organizing offers concepts and tools that are indispensable to a democratic strategy of social change. Community Organizingwill be essential reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of sociology, social movements and social work. It will also inform organizers and grassroots leaders, as well as the elected officials and others who contend with them. David Walls is professor emeritus of sociology at Sonoma StateUniversity in Rohnert Park, California. He is co-editor ofAppalachia in the Sixties and author of The Activist'sAlmanac. He worked with the Appalachian Volunteers, acommunity organizing project in the central Appalachian coalfields,from 1966 to 1970. He presently is a member of the leadershipcouncil of the North Bay Organizing Project.

'Community Organizing' shall enable enduring self-organized activism. Civil society is understood as a political sphere & participation is claimed where engagement is also a service; it also includes systematically the weak. Civil society should be self organized from the bottom, in order to cooperate with state & market from eye to eye -- a cooperation which also includes dealing with conflicts for reaching common aims. The concept Community Organizing' is presented & exemplified by a case study of Berlin- Schoneweide. References. Adapted from the source document.

Community Organizing (CO) hat sich als Ansatz demokratischen Handelns in den 1930er Jahren in den USA entwickelt und seit den 1990er Jahren auch in Deutschland etabliert. Vor dem Hintergrund einer starken Politikverdrossenheit sowie von Spaltungstendenzen innerhalb der Gesellschaft lohnt es sich, diese demokratische Tradition neu kennenzulernen und auf ihre gegenwärtigen Potenziale hin zu reflektieren. In der Publikation werden für diesen Zweck Grundlagentexte, Fachartikel sowie Erfahrungsberichte des Broad-Based Community Organizing zusammengeführt und in einen aktuellen Gesamtzusammenhang gesetzt.

In 1996, the Gamaliel Foundation, a national network of more than 40 congregation‐based community organizing projects, adopted a regional approach to community organizing, consolidating local projects into metropolitan organizations and addressing regional dynamics of sprawl and socioeconomic polarization. Through participant observation and interviews at metropolitan and national levels, I examine the effects of regionalism on community organizing. I find that a regional approach may help organizers manage longstanding dilemmas of ideology—how to balance broad appeal with sharp analysis—and scale—how to maintain democratic participation while organizing beyond the local level. I look briefly at the effects of grassroots organizing on regionalism, and find that it may give it a more radical and populist thrust.

The Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991 paved the way for broader people's participation in local governance. It gave the local government units (LGUs) power to organize themselves to become self-reliant communities and to realize the essence of community governance. This article highlights the significance of community participation and governance in attaining genuine people-oriented development. It illustrates community governance as a critical element in effective Public Administration in contemporary period. This is shown through an analysis of selected communities where their experiences in community organizing are analyzed and their perceptions on the role of LGUs vis-a-vis LGC are presented. There are two study areas in this article, with two case samples per area: people-initiated (Aeta and KINIPAn's cases) and LGU-initiated (Balanga City and General Nakar) community organizing efforts. A cross-comparison in terms of community leadership, ownership, and empowerment are also tackled to determine the general trends that can be gleaned from the cases.

AbstractAnalytical Skills for Community Organization Practice, by Donna Hardina. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2002. 390 pp., $52.00 cloth.